In organizational life, going forward usually means moving up. Most professionals would like to advance – for better pay, greater responsibility, or more meaningful work. Making that advancement happen isn’t always so straightforward. You have to position yourself in an increasingly complex game as you move through your career. Are there guidelines? Perhaps. One study found that…

There’s a significant amount of attention in leadership literature about how to provide tough feedback. That makes sense since conveying criticism hits several triggers for us, from fear of conflict to being disliked. However, positive feedback needs its own focus, since we’re not excelling there either. Just as we avoid providing critical feedback, we all…

They are the rock your world, head-slapping conversations. Or the slow, burning a-ha talks. They occur with those we know well and with total strangers. They can take five minutes or five hours. But at the end, we are not the same. The conversation changes us. We are more and better because of them. I’ve…

When you’ve published a book, an interesting thing happens: people start using your ideas as if they were their own. There’s no ill intent here. Generally, there’s so much information available that people legitimately forget where one idea originated, including whether or not it started with them. I’ve given talks where the organizer directly quotes…

Some leaders are able to assemble teams with the absolute best talent in the market. They have large budgets, innovative brands, and the latitude to recruit whomever they wish for their organizations. They’re also rare. The vast majority of leaders are forced to make do with some combination of the talent they can attract and…

Want to enjoy your job more? Innovate in your work? Inspire your team to greatness? Create a life that makes you feel alive? It’s entirely in your power, and may be rooted not in what you do, or even what you think, but in how you think. In the book, Mindset, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck…